Title: Picking TeamsAuthor: CandylandFandom: Prêtear: A girl must save the world by taking seven different men into her body! One at a time, of course. There is also lots of magic, and psychotic step-sisters! I don't own it!Wordcount: 1099Taunt: My fandom has more Evil Trees than yours.

Himeno woke up one morning to the sound of rapping on the French doors that led out to her balcony. She struggled awake and rubbed the last remnants of sleep from her eyes as she stumbled across the room to open them. She could guess who was out there; after all, her balcony was fairly high off the ground, so unless Spiderman had wandered into the neighborhood, there were only a limited few who could access it from the outside.

Sure enough, Mannen was waving at her through the glass.

She smiled and opened the doors—and gasped as a rush of cold air came blowing into her bedroom. The bite of it went straight through her pajamas, chilling her right to the bone. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. "M-Mannen! What's going on?"

"Look!" he cheered, pointing to the scenery behind him.

Himeno looked around…and her eyes widened. "Snow!"

At some point during the night, the heavens had opened up and buried the Awayuki estate and town beneath a massive snowfall, unlike anything that had been seen for the last several years. The gardens and grounds were completely covered beneath a thick white layer, and more was falling from the sky, slowly and gently.

It was beautiful.

Mannen was positively overflowing with childish happiness; for all that he sometimes professed to be far older than his years, he was still a kid. "We wanna play in it! Come with us!"

Himeno laughed. "Okay, okay! Just let me get dressed before I freeze!" She watched as the Knight of Ice flew off and smiled. Mannen was really in his element now—as it were. But she closed the door and set about searching for appropriate outerwear to survive in the cold.

-o-

"This is perfect packing snow," Himeno commented, molding a lump of snow into an approximate sphere in her gloved hands. She was bundled up against the chill—coat, scarf, hat, gloves, the works.

The Leafe Knights had emerged from Leafenia via the portal in the gardens, as usual. She hadn't know that they'd had scarves and such in Leafenia, but perhaps it snowed there as well? Himeno wasn't sure. She would have to ask sometime…

But right now she was a little bit distracted by the fact that Hajime seemed determined to dump some snow on her head, and she whipped around and made a face at him, startling him into dropping the snow on himself instead. He fell back into the snow, laughing.

The older Knights were standing nearby, watching the children play. Overall, they looked…well, "adult-like" was the best word Himeno could come up with. Sasame was smiling at the children's behavior, and Goh looked sort of amused. Hayate...well, he was being himself—he was probably more interested in what was going on than he wanted to let on, and so kept himself as stone-faced as possible. And Kei…well, Kei looked bored.

Himeno stood up and looked at them. "You know, it wouldn't hurt to cut loose a little bit."

A chorus of disclaimers met her ears.

Mannen jumped on Goh's back. "Let's have a snowball fight!"

The Knight of Fire yelped and grappled with the boy clinging to his neck. "Mannen! OFF!" He finally got Mannen to let go…only to get nailed by a snowball, courtesy of Hajime.

"I think a snowball fight is a great idea," Himeno said with a smile. "Let's pick teams." She was immediately knocked over by the three children, all of whom were loudly crowing that Himeno-neechan was on their team; she gave the other Knights a Look. "Well?"

It was proof of how much their Prêtear had affected them; even Kei agreed to participate, albeit a bit grudgingly. And so the teams separated, each going to stake out their own ground and create some sort of a defense. Himeno was dragged away by the three children to quickly build a makeshift snow fort.

As the adults did the same, though in a much more orderly fashion, Sasame smiled. "I haven't done this in a long time. It might actually be fun…" He lifted a rather sizable chunk of snow and piled it up to create their own defense.

"Mannen's going down," was all Goh had to say about it.

Soon, both sides had their respective areas prepared. And in relatively short order, the battle (as it were) was joined. But there was a surprise waiting for the adults: the minute the snowball fight officially started, they were all but buried beneath a barrage of snowballs.

The kids were winning. Big time. Somehow, they were being slaughtered (metaphorically speaking, of course) by their Prêtear and the three Knights who had yet to reach puberty. And this did not sit well with the older Knights.

The competitive claws came out. Soon, even Kei was getting into things. He took one right in the face; he brushed the snow away with one hand and frowned. "How are they making snowballs so fast?" Another one sailed by his head at an alarming speed. "And how in the world are they firing them like that?"

Goh dodged another flying snowball and called out, "Hey! How're you doing that?"

Himeno's face appeared over the top of her team's snow-fort; she was flushed and grinning from ear to ear. "Think about it, guys. What is snow?"

"Frozen water," Hayate offered.

There was a pause as it clicked.

Then Sasame put his hand to his forehead. "We've been had."

Goh was already on his feet. "Mannen! Hajime!"

For his trouble, he was nearly buried beneath a pile of snow. But before he fell over, he caught a glimpse of something green poking up from behind their fort; apparently, Shin had called a plant from beneath the snow to act as a surprisingly effective catapult.

"Prepare to be vanquished!" Mannen crowed. Another snowball went airborne…

…and flew far to the left, much higher than any of the others.

In fact, it seemed to be heading towards the Awayuki mansion…

The snowball fight stopped as they all watched the small white dot fly over a balcony, out of view…and then they heard a loud squawk as it apparently made contact with a person. They didn't have very long to wonder who they'd hit—the accompanying screech gave it away.

"HIMENO!!!"

The Leafe Knights and their Prêtear looked at each other; as one person, they all took off running through the snow, laughing their heads off as they rushed to get away before Mayune came downstairs to teach them a lesson for nailing her with a snowball.

PS.A random silly plunnie for y'all. The idea of the kids creaming the older Knights at a snowball fight just amused me. Much love to RanMouri82 for the idea. Thanks for reading, all! Much love!

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